In a trip down memory lane, and to break up the monotony of the lockout, Jonathan Willis of the Edmonton Journal recollects the time back in 2002 when, for a day, Rangers goalie Mike Richter was a member of the Edmonton Oilers.

…"For one day in 2002, Richter was a member of the Edmonton Oilers. By curious coincidence, the player the Oilers traded to add Richter to their team was Corey Potter – the long-time Rangers farmhand who only broke through as an NHL’er with the Oilers in 2011-12.

…On June 30, Mike Richter officially became a member of the Edmonton Oilers. On July 1, he became an unrestricted free agent. On July 4, he signed a contract with his new team – the New York Rangers."…

Willis explains the compensatory rule the NHL had for smaller-market teams that typically lost their free agents.

…"The way the rule worked was that teams which lost more Group III unrestricted free agents than they signed could be awarded compensatory picks after the first round to help off-set the loss."…

The best example of this is Dallas surrendering the 45th overall pick to Boston back in 2003 for signing Bill Guerin. The Bruins turned that pick into Patrice Bergeron. The Rangers have also been beneficiaries of compensatory picks in the past, specifically trading Mark Messier's rights to San Jose in 2004 in exchange for the 127th overall pick used on Ryan Callahan.

…I like reading about things such as this. Puck Press has a nice article from May detailing more occurrences of how certain Rangers came to be from compensatory picks. Cool stuff…